Category: Trombone

I’ve recently acquired a Wessex contrabass trombone in F. It is pretty much a knock-off of the Thein Ben van Dijk model, and compared to this gold standard of contrabass trombone, this instrument is about an eighth of the price and a perfectly decent instrument. It plays really well throughout the range and the slide, valves and bell are all of high build quality, unlike the notorious Chinese-made instruments of the past.

But really, this post is just an excuse to test out a nifty music notation WordPress plugin. The shorthand it uses is ABC which is a bit quaint compared to Lilypond, but it seems to work well enough. For instance, take the first scale we might learn on a contrabass trombone:

The contrabass trombone in F only has six positions on the open slide instead of seven. Furthermore, only the first five are actually practical, unless you are Tarzan, so we can play the G on the first (D) valve in third position. While the A is also theoretically available in first position on the D valve, it is indistinct and slightly flat. Play it on the open slide in fourth. Good. Now, how about an excerpt from Ein Alpensinfonie by Richard Strauss:

Sounds good! Now, pop along to the NZSO performance in March 2017 to hear Shannon playing it, live in concert! In the meantime, here’s this excerpt by Berlin Philharmoniker: